Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Merry Cliché

It’s started. Like the Christmas shop windows that are dressed up earlier every year, the clichés have begun: ‘It doesn’t really feel like Christmas, does it?’ (Gutless as always, I say ‘No’ – but I never know what it is I’ve agreed to.)And soon. the news stories: ‘Dreaming of a Tight Christmas?: High street feeling the Pinch’. Cue shots of Woolworth’s and Selfridges’s shopfronts and shopkeeper interviews: ‘So far things are looking much better for us than last year’.Harrods is, as usual, doing well. Their Christmas ‘Diamond’ crackers (presumably containing a diamond) are a snip this year at £799; they’re also doing ‘Russian’ crackers at £999. Do you get a Russian inside each one – or just another cracker?

A recent Rod Liddle piece in the Sunday Times commented on the fact that in its latest attempt to nail the British National Party – our Fascist political party which is almost as far right as GWB and perhaps even TB – the law brought two of its members to justice charged with making racist remarks. The utterances were to the effect that large numbers of British-born Muslem extremists constituted a danger to the British public. After a long and expensive trial, they were acquitted.Coincidental support came from two influential but unexpected quarters: first, British-born Muslems blew up three packed London Underground trains and a bus, and secondly, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, Head of MI5, reported that large numbers of British-born Muslem extremists constituted a danger to the British public. ‘Will Dame Eliza feel the heavy hand of the Law on her shoulder?’ asked Liddle. Somehow one doubts it. And does this mean that I am making racist utterances? I don’t think so, but if I am, what about Nottingham City Council? They uttered that they were banning black cabs from bus lanes.